A Sea of Red
by NuttyRoyale
Summary: This is the second time in a year that Emma Nelson has stared death in the face. [post TSS short]


**Author's Notes:** reposting this, because I kind of accidentally deleted it. Oops. I suck.

Also: _this story is a short. A one-shot. There will be no more parts after this one. _Which is my really polite way of saying don't post reviews that say "rite more 2 thisplz!".

As always: _Degrassi_ and the characters of? Not mine.

* * *

This is the second time in a year that Emma Nelson has stared death in the face. 

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. But she counts anything now, counts any brief dangerous moment when fleeting and precious life could just disappear, vanish away in the blink of an eye. She sits in the basement, her bedroom, with her head tilted back on the wall, resting as she thinks.

The first was when Snake got diagnosed with cancer. It was a quiet brush with death. It was slow and tedious and it hurt, having to come upstairs in the morning to see him sitting at the table, tapping away on his laptop, trying to keep in routine. She still saw his pale skin, his weary eyes; she noticed the change in demeanor and how sluggish he was after chemo. It shook her to the core and made her worry. She didn't let anyone know about the few nights she'd waken up shrieking and crying, convinced that Snake had died while she was asleep, only to have her mother come downstairs (Jack with her, screaming in time with his big sister) to assure her that Snake was fine. That day when she'd seen the will had pushed her to the breaking point, but it ended well, with the doctor saying that Snake had gone into remission.

The second was today.

Of course, the first instinct is to say that _things like this don't happen to me_ over and over. It's never at _your_ school. You're never the one who's frozen in a hallway, a gun pointed at you as a classmate, someone you know, someone you could've pushed over the edge is holding it, talking to you, trembling. It's never you. It shouldn't be you. _These things don't happen._

But it did.

She can't close her eyes. She doesn't know if she'll ever be able to again. She still sees Rick in that hall, hair still wet and with yellow paint stains on his pressed white shirt. She can hear Sean trying to reason with him, trying to stay calm, but she can't remember the words. She can remember Toby gasping. She can remember gasping herself, as her eyes grew warm with tears, and wanting to plead for her life. _Please, no, I'm sorry._ She remembers the words getting stuck and then blinking to see Sean fighting to get the gun from Rick's hand. She remembers the sound of the gunshots.

Things become blurry then. The SWAT team raced in, poised and ready for attack. She screamed then, finally able to find words: "Sean! Is Sean okay?" One of the members of the team tried to pull her away, but she wouldn't let him. She screamed for Sean, once more. _He's not dead. No. He can't be. If he's dead..._ But a blur of gray, the sound of a moan hits her like a stack of bricks. Now the emergency crew is coming in, and someone's yelling to an EMT, "He's been hit!" Her breath is in her throat now. _He's okay._ A moment of relief.

Not for long, though.

The last thing that Emma remembers clearly before being dragged home is that one last look down that hallway. The EMTs are fussing over Sean, and two are examining Rick. As Emma gets pulled away, she sees Rick's body sprawled on the floor. The glasses have fallen off his face. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth agape, almost in surprise. He is lying perfectly still. For a second, she hopes that he's got a chance, that this is just a figment of her imagination and that he'll get sent to the hospital and then off to some psych ward...

Until she sees the quickly spreading circle of red on his shirt. A sea of red amidst the pale yellow and the crisp white.

She sits here, her eyes opened wide, struggling to stay awake. Trying to escape sleep. Trying so hard, so damn _hard_ to forget and to breathe again. But she can't.

She sits on the floor, and wonders exactly how much of her died today.


End file.
